Plague Of The Revenants (3 page)

The bodies came in trucks. The diggers made deep holes in the stadium over forty feet deep. We took the bodies and covered them up with a thin layer of dirt then moved on to the next ones. Sometimes, often in fact, the bodies were not completely put down, would turn and snap like a rattlesnake into the arm or even the throat of one of the prisoners. When that happened a guard would charge down the line and the prisoner would be cut down in a hail of bullets. We were worked eighteen hours per day. Those who did not work hard enough disappeared in the middle of the night. You didn’t need three guesses to work out what had happened to them. Here in the confines of this stadium Blake ruled the roost. He was the supreme tyrant, the dictator, the living God amongst us all. Blake was in his element. He was loving the chaos and the destruction and I saw
him take down revenants with gusto. “Come along you little fuckers!” He roared triumphantly. “Let’s see what you can do!”
We slept on waste ground just outside the stadium which in turn was surrounded by a flimsy wire fence. Armed guards patrolled the perimeter, but they were only half there to protect us. The guards were shitting themselves as well, and here only because they were isolated and had nowhere else to go. It was absurd to continue burying bodies in the stadium when things were as bad as this but somewhere somebody was still clinging on to the semblance of the old bureaucracy. The revenants pressed up against the metal fencing as we tried to sleep. We all knew it was only a matter of time. At night we heard the screams and moans of the revenants attacking the ever decreasing band of survivors. Sometimes we would see survivors dashing up to the railings and rattling them hard, begging to be let in. I remember thinking it must truly have come to something if the living actually sought refuge in a hellhole such as this. The guards started to desert, vanishing off into the night. Some of the prisoners refused to work and embraced the welcome death of the machine guns. Only Blake seemed above it, Blake and myself. I knew I had nothing to live for, had given up completely and it was going to take more than the end of the world as we knew it to get me to start caring now. We weren’t expected to live, us prisoners, it was not figured into the equation. Some of the other inmates talked of escape, but escape to what? There was nothing out there except the undead, nothing except burned out buildings and crashed cars, the stench of death and the darkest despair. Back in the cells all I had done was listen to the radio. I had heard the reports from other countries that were hit first and I knew that once things got to this stage it was all over.

I remember the first one I killed. It was brought in buried beneath the others and unloaded from the dumper truck. We came forward with our shovels, myself and another prisoner named Royce who I had been paired up with. We started reaching down, picking them up on either side and throwing them into the pit. Unfortunately for Royce he was on the head end, didn’t see the ravenous jaws snap up towards him until it was too late and after that the piercing scream as the thing buried its teeth into his arm, the spurt of blood.
I jumped back, raised my shovel and swung it towards the revenant without hesitation, sharp end first. The blade of my spade connected hard with the revenant’s scalp, slicing it clean in half. The creature’s jaws froze and it died without another sound. Meanwhile Royce’s scream were clear for all to hear. I bent down beside him and ripped a piece off my t-shirt to use as a tourniquet, started to wrap it around his wound. “Don’t worry,” I told him. “You’re going to be okay.”
“Or perhaps not,” came a voice behind me. The shot whizzed past my neck, severing the hairs, and smashed into the dead centre of Royce’s forehead. I leapt up, spun around to face Blake. “Nicely done, Grant,” said the warden with a thin smile. “Except next time try not to get too sentimental over the bitten, eh? I’ve never seen it end well yet.”

So it went on for
over a week. I could see it was hopeless and was sure the government must have seen it too, presuming the government still existed at that point. Somebody must have been coordinating the lorries which still drew up outside the stadium full of bodies. There were more bodies than we could cope with and no more space to bury them. Those who tried to point this out were shot. I could see at once the law was now entirely in the hands of Blake. Of the one hundred and fifty inmates who had started out just forty now remained. Even the guards had been virtually enslaved as Blake asserted his dominance over the whole affair. I wondered why he stayed here, why he didn’t just take off by himself. I supposed it was because there were no more safe havens, or perhaps he was simply biding his time.

Soon
I could sense a mounting unease amongst the guards. They were talking amongst themselves, ignoring both the bodies and ourselves. I started hearing words like ‘swarm.’ After ten days I started noticing even more ominous signs. Survivors no longer came up clamouring to be let in. The aggressive shouts of the pursuing revenants from outside were replaced with a low and steady moan as they patrolled the streets without stimulus. The trucks pulled up less frequently. Discipline broke down. It was now not only prisoners that went missing in the night and what is more us inmates were increasingly left to our own devices and not being worked so hard.
One morning we woke up to find the fences groaning with the weight of a multitude of the undead bearing down on top of it.
“This is the endgame, Grant,” said Blake, coming up to me and laying a comradely hand on my shoulder. “There won’t be any more trucks coming through; I’ve been radioing headquarters for two days now. Nothing.”
“So what are we going to do?” I asked him.
“As for you, you’ll serve your sentence as it was supposed to be served,” replied Blake with a thin smile.
“What do you mean?”
“You were sentenced to die in captivity,” purred the warden. “And die in captivity is exactly what you’re going to do. Whether you turn and become one of them, well that may be up to you. Depends how quickly you can finish yourself off.”
I started to question him more but at that moment Blake raised the butt of his rifle and rammed it hard into the bridge of my nose, shattering it across my face. Stars appeared before my eyes and I fell to the floor. I don’t know if I lost consciousness but certainly I missed something because the next thing I knew there was a flashing explosion followed by screaming and the shuffling of undead feet. I looked up to see both guard and inmate fleeing in panic from the revenants, who had somehow managed to breach the fences which now lay flat on the ground and were pouring through the gaps and into the waste-ground. They were coming in at all ends. The prisoners dropped their shovels and ran, not realising they were surrounded. The guards fired off their weapons but it was all a drop in the ocean. I charged to the top of the stands but knew it could only be a delaying tactic. I realised at once what had happened. Blake had opened the gates and allowed them in, creating just the distraction he needed to make his own escape and indeed over it all I heard the purr of an engine and I looked down to see the unmistakable outline of Blake sat at the wheel of one of the dumper trucks. As I watched he accelerated away, through the revenants, running them over without hesitation. There were not so many of them of course. Most had already poured into the stadium and I saw at once what had happened. I leapt to my feet straight away, although my head screamed at me, drew upon a survival instinct I didn’t know I still possessed and ran with the others, away from the revenants and back inside the stadium. I ran and as I ran I thought and planned. I sprinted ahead to the end of the stadium, turned and looked around. There was no way out. The revenants were coming in at all angles. At that moment a revenant staggered towards me, its drooling mouth fixated upon my flesh. I ripped one of the plastic chairs from its hinges and parried the beast away as best I could. The revenant staggered back and I took the opportunity to throw out my foot and sending it flying back down the stone steps. One down, nine hundred and ninety nine more to go. I looked around and realised straight away that the only way was up. I rushed up to the metal pillar at the front of the stand and leapt on to it then started climbing up with all my strength. I felt the icy grip of a revenant upon my bare heel and I kicked out for all I worse worth and slid about a foot down. Turning around I saw a multitude of revenants converging upon me. I tried desperately to focus, seized on my energy reserves and shot upwards once more towards the roof. Once there it was an agonising struggle to find leverage on the roof and afterwards I pulled myself up, took in my breath and surveyed the terrible scene below. The revenants had poured into the stadium so that no more ground could be seen. As I watched I saw my fellow prisoners dashing this way and that before realising they were surrounded. I saw men I had lived with for years seized and torn apart and yet there was nothing I could do to help them. Their piercing screams for help carried over to my vantage point even over the moans of the undead hordes. For the revenants it was just one mass bundle for human flesh. It is small mercy, I thought to myself, that there will be nothing left of my comrades for them to turn.
I knew I had to get to the countryside. Anybody still left in the town was either dead or wandering the streets in search of flesh. But first I needed to get down from this damned roof. I walked the length and breadth but there was no way through the sea of revenants. There was nothing for me here on the roof of the stadium and I was not prepared to let the cold or the hunger get to me before the revenants. I travelled the length of the roof, looking down, searching for a break in the sea of the swarm but there was none. At least they could not climb up here to reach me. It was no use. I would have to wait until they dispersed. After eight years in jail I was more than used to waiting and besides, I got the feeling it would be foolish to try and bolt from the creatures. I was still wearing the heavy coat pilfered off one of the revenants which I had used as a blanket whilst sleeping on the waste ground, so at least I would have some protection against exposure.
I remained on the roof for three days and night, drinking the stagnant water of the gutters when I needed hydration. Even though it was the height of summer by night it was still cold and the wind blew the rotten stench of death to chill my living bones. Throughout this time I tried to remain as quiet as possible in the hope that the revenants would soon disperse. By day I prowled as quietly as possible, waiting for my chance. The revenants wandered aimlessly in and out of the stadium, stumbled over the rubble and picked over the bloodied morsels of my fellow inmates. From the stadium I also had a good vantage point of the town but as I scanned the horizon all the way to the fields beyond not a firm sighting of life did I see. Sometimes I saw smoke which raised my spirits slightly but this almost always turned out to be an uncontrolled blaze from a factory which had started because there had been nobody left alive to stop it.

My chance
finally came on the fourth day, a slight path through to the road, a thinning of the revenants, a way out. I did not flinch, did not even stop to collect my coat. I was already half mad with hunger and knew that if I didn’t move now I would be too weak to make good my escape. I swung off the roof with my hands and slid like a fireman down the support beam, slowing myself towards the end to land silently on the stone floor. They saw me immediately, as I knew they would, but I hit the ground running, rushing through the stands and out on to the road beyond. I put my head down and charged, swinging with my fist to knock down a revenant who lurched into my path. Though weak I was still a big man from years of working out in the gym and reckoned myself a formidable force to be reckoned with despite the vast revenant numbers opposed to me.

I hurried through the unfamiliar streets and when I tired I staggered
, but I could not afford to stop. The revenants did not let up in their pursuit of me. This was the freshest meat they would have seen in days. I turned corner after corner and many times I saw a horde blocking my way. I was required to double back and try and dive down alleyways or through gardens in a constant, never-ending game of cat and mouse. If only I could find a moment to collect my thoughts, to think up a plan, and even through it all I could never quite forget how hungry I was.
The revenant fell on to me from the doorway as I ran past, the perfect ambush. I struggled hard, tried to shake it off but it gripped my shoulder tightly and together we fell, grappling to the floor. My frantic fingers reached up and seized a hold of its head, trying desperately to keep its ravenous jaws away from my skin. From behind and in front I heard the moan of the advancing hordes. I kicked out my legs for leverage and rolled over on top of it, pinioning its neck to the ground with one hand and bringing up my other to pound its hellish face into oblivion. It was a fast, frenzied attack and I had no time to make sure of my work. As soon as its body went limp I was on my feet and running once more. I put my head down and charged through a small crowd of the creatures, their clawing hands ripping at my clothes, and yet I came through it unscathed, for now at least. I turned a corner and came into a street I recognised from before, was pursued by revenants whose rotting faces I had seen before. I was going round in circles and in the meantime my energy levels were falling and my luck was surely fast running out.
I ran as fast as I could and as I ran the revenants turned to follow behind me until the stench of their pursuing numbers was practically unbearable. It was no use. Everywhere I turned there were more of them and it was as though the entire population of revenants was now focused upon me, determined to take me down. There was no way out and to make matters worse I had run myself down a road which put me either side of a fenced off industrial estate so could not even duck into a house for refuge. It was then I saw the car, skewered across the road, its driver side door open from where it had been quickly abandoned. I decided to seize the opportunity. Even if it wouldn’t start I would have refuge for the time being, a precious few seconds to rest up and think. I dashed up to the car as the first of the revenants reached me, diving inside and slamming the door on its inhuman fingers. I locked the doors for all the good it would be and sat back hard against the seat, my eyes closed tight, breathing heavily. But the revenants offered me no let up, converging as one on the car and slamming their hands upon the windows, rhythmically beating down upon it. The sound of a crack attracted my attention and I snapped open my eyes to be greeted with the sight of the windscreen slowly splintering against the weight of a multitude of bodies. I looked around, realising I had no chance of flight then reached desperately for the keys which were by some miracle still in the ignition. I turned the engine over and it stalled almost straight away. I tried again without success then attempted a long pull and this time, to my great relief, the vehicle spluttered to life. I pushed my foot down hard upon the accelerator and the vehicle pressed against the bodies, moved agonisingly slowly but at least it moved. At that moment a revenant lifted up its head and slammed it hard upon the windscreen, shattering the glass which remained in place but nonetheless blocked my vision ahead. I slammed the vehicle into reverse, turned the steering wheel, anything to free myself from the hellish embrace. Suddenly the car lurched forwards. There came a sickening crunch as one of the undead fell beneath the wheels and all at once I was free of the pack. As I drove I saw more vehicles jacknifed across the road, almost all of them streaked with blood, their windows smashed in and their bodywork dented from the force of the revenant attack. I realised then I was making a similar mistake in assuming I was protected by the bodywork of the vehicle. In truth there were simply too many of them. Still, at least I was free and surely on the home stretch. I threw back my head and whooped with joy, accelerated fast and spun the car around the corner, thinking myself home free and almost immediately afterwards colliding head on with a lorry which was spread out across the road. I lurched forward and pitched through the windscreen which now surrendered to my weight and flung me right through on to the bonnet beyond where I sprawled in a heap. Dazed and confused I lay there for several seconds until the advancing moan of the revenant hordes spurred me into action once more. I leapt to my feet and looked towards the car. It was no use. The vehicle’s entire front end was buried under the lorry. I was on my own once more. I turned to see the revenants converging upon me from all angles. I ran once more, heading out of the industrial state and towards the residential areas. I knew this was likely to lead me directly into more hordes but at the same time it might just offer me the shelter I so desperately needed to rest up and take stock of my shattered nerves. All the time my eyes searched around for a vehicle but although I saw many parked up there were none simply abandoned and I was hardly in a position to go rooting for the keys. I ran across the main road, now strangely deserted and completely devoid of life and to my relief spied a row of terrace houses straight ahead. I scanned the darkened windows for signs of life as I approached, for I desperately needed allies but there was nothing. If anybody was still alive up there they were keeping themselves very much to themselves.